NANNY STATE GOES OTT...

Harlow council posted something on Facebook about using the municipal dump instead of dumping stuff anywhere.... How ironic, given today's circumstances, no wonder people fly-tip!

Being a Sunday, the municipal dump gets busy, so the queue was long, so as I only had two items to dispose of, I parked my car on an area outside the municipal dump and walked to the gates.

As I to walk into the municipal dump with a couple of items I was be confronted by a security man, in a dump, ironic!!
What precious things was he guarding? Not sure but I accepted the presence of this person.

Anyway, he addressed me and stopped me and others going in because of 'health and safety'. He stated that no walk-in's were allowed. I was a walk in now.

Someone was run over last week apparently and therefore no walk-in's allowed.

I asked the individual to let me in for a moment (after all, I am able to follow green cross codes etc...) plus I was only two or three metres from the target destination and I would not be crossing a road or anything.. Again, I asked him to be reasonable.

He again asked me not to and when I argued, he then stated I was Queue jumping and if I did not like the rules not to use the facility.. I reminded him of a fact that I was paid for the use of this in my council tax.
He didn't care, he was there to blindly keep a rule that had no sense or substance to it and just be obstructive, unhelpful and a nuisance.

I walked away, despite the urge to leave him with the 6 foot broken blind and an old washing basket as an added adornment to the numerous piercings he sported. Alas, I didn't...

The sad ironic thing is this will increase fly-tipping and just because one individual was careless, the variables were stacked against him on the day, we now all had to suffer the 'little Hitler' enforcing unreasonable rules.

Was I aggrieved, what do you think?

Harlow Heritage piece

Here's a @yourharlow heritage piece about living in Harlow.
I was asked to give an interview as to why I live here and what made me stay.
Harlow is a New Town in Essex that celebrates 70 years this year.

Enjoy the link

Author on the BBC

I'm being interviewed on BBC Essex on Dec 27th regarding a New Town project... Why we came and what made us stay?
The interview is on at 07:00 GMT

This is part of the project Michael from YourHarlow.Com has been working on.
It commemorates 70 years of Harlow new town.
The latter sounds like a mammoth task and an interesting piece...  I'm doing 1985.

The BBC piece involves an overview of experiences and evolution of the town I adopted as my home 31 years ago.

It's also a great opportunity to plug my books...
Tune in and listen.

Politics mis-explained

My wife and I were enjoying a nice pot of tea and a scone with cream send jam in the sunshine today.  We'd just had a lovely,  cultured walk around the Gibberd Gardens in Harlow.  We were sitting outside the Gibberd tea room and overheard a father explain politics to his two children aged around 8-9 years.
Both of us feel terrible for not intervening in the indoctrination, brain-washing and utter balls this man was spouting... But protocol, politeness and not ruining the children's opinions of their mis-informed father was our choice, not to react...  One cannot change the world at times, energy fails and bigots exist, no matter what.

Anyway,  he was saying Frederick Gibberd was a great architect and that he designed Harlow for people who were non-aspiratonal, happy to live in bland housing and all looked the same... He was right about Gibberd being a visionary but that was the limit of his correctness.
He didn't like roundabouts, and Harlow does have a load,  however if he did not know how to manage a car around a roundabout, we would not hold that against him.

He then linked in politics...  Asking if they were aware of the main political parties in England..  Really???
Shouldn't he have spent time going around the gardens with his offspring and learning about art, sculpture, nature etc.  Rather than just sitting at the tea rooms!

He explained that conservatives allow those who work hard to make a difference to their lives,  labour was socialist and this was a slightly less extreme from communism and that these were not good for society!

We managed to remain outwardly calm and inwardly seething!

Is it any wonder that the world is full of misinformation and cruelty. These kids will grow up believing this rubbish.

What other 'lessons' are being downloaded to them via the parental units?

I doubt this blog will be read by these ignoramus couple but let's put some facts straight.

Socialism is not evil.
All opportunities are made by hard working people and they are not governed by the politics they follow.

Harlow people have aspirations,  aspirations to make Harlow a great place to live in, a safe community that allows equality.
The houses are similar but certainly not the same.
Harlow has a lot going for it and does not have People who have no aspiration...  Some people choose to live here because of the wealth of opportunities it offers, diversity and proximity to London, Cambridge etc.

The saving grace was that the children did not seem too bothered by dad's blurb as once he finished his misinformation, all they said was... Can we go and look at the sculptures now!!

Thankfully, they did!

Authors meet - Hollywood in Harlow

Last night I saw one of my comedy idols,  Omid Djalili in Harlow.
Great gig and very funny.
Met after and bought his autobiography that was autographed by him. He recognised me from Twitter as he follows me on my Twitter account @Author_man_ram
Nice fellow. He said to my wife,  this man is a legend...  And autographed his autobiography with the inscription as bellow.
My wife's reply was 'I know that's why I married him'

Great evening.

Football... Gibraltar v Poland

Check out @TheRockOfGib's Tweet: https://twitter.com/TheRockOfGib/status/508625066821967872

#Harlow support for #Gibraltar v Poland with one of our sons,  Keiron

Author interview

YourHarlow interviewed me last week

The result was the following ....
http://www.yourharlow.com/2013/12/29/author-ram-everyone-has-a-tale-to-tell/

You can also see it via YouTube.. type Ram Gulrajani

I think it went okay and had some good feedback that has also generated some more book sales!

Hope you enjoy it.

Clever Graffiti

Kids in Harlow don't play hopscotch, they do long division on pavements instead...